Category Archives: The Stonegauge

Wednesday, February 10th marked my 12th anniversary as a hockey blogger. That’s a pretty huge milestone as bloggers don’t usually last more than 3 years… let alone 12! Oh, Stonegauge is probably older than that – though I did not have many entries the past few years. To mark the occasion I brought up the genetic/neurological disorder I’ve been dealing with since I started, and started a charity drive called Deke the Deuce. The money is going to a Tampa Bay area based Neurofibromatosis Type II charity organization.

Big time blogger raising awareness and pulling in dollars to aid the fight against NF2! Cute name for the drive too!

Yeah, well, what I’ve learned in the past week-plus of the drive is that charity fundraising is tough even if you have a huge reach through social and general media. You may have a wide number of readers or thsoe exposed to the drive by way of retweets and Facebook shares but if someone doesn’t connect to the cause, why would they hand over a nickel, let alone the amount of cash that would actually show up on the charity page?

I don’t know the best way to “update” the page. Anything I say is too personal and too thin an audience sees it. Yet I have to connect and personal is the only way to do it. But telling people how you went deaf? What life can be like in deafness or even just hard of hearing?

The fact I’m also mostly pushing this at hockey fans hurts things too just because I’m not sure how to give it a broader appeal.

I plan on running thins through March 16… I don’t know if I’ll even reach $500, but the money raised is better than nothing. And I HAVE enlightened some people and introduced them to the disorder in general.

My writing habits have been stuck on Lightning hockey for something like 7 years now. Sometimes I vent on Reddit.com or in private conversations. Other times I’ve articulated in fiction writing that’s sitting in a “Saved” folder on my PC.

I dunno,perhaps it is time to un-mothball this thing and use it to express myself instead of hiding it? Then again, reviewing some of my riting here I call people out by name. That’s not good. Â At the same time, knowing this siteÂ hasn’t been public for years (and not easily accessible even to me) the site has not been indexed in search engines or shared through social mediums in a long, long time. Looking over web traffic data proves it.

This article draft was put together months ago, but it’s publication is only being done now. Â Hmmm, maybe i should actually post some worthwhile content instead of venting writing-wise?

One thing I have to do that absolutelyÂ has to be done is clear up the blogroll. Some of those sites are spam sites now, others are just dead-in-the-water. Â Sorta like Stonegauge, which is only getting reads (from me) for the first time in forever.

I decided to take a shot with some of my written works, stuff that has never been published beore (sans on this web site) and actually submit them to a literary review. It’s been about a month since I made those submissions. It oculd be another two before I hear back from said literary review.

Look, I’m not the most interesting guy out there. Just go through the archives here (which stretch back to 2002) and you can find plenty of boring, personal, and petty drivel. I’m not flashy, but I have been involved with the sites and people that your independent newspaper has honored again and again — such as helping Tommy Duncan run Sticks of Fire from 2005-2007, or aiding CL columnist Catherine Durkin Robinson with her blog as well as editing one of her books. I’m online buddies with one of Tampa Bay’s most popular Twitter personalities in Clark Brooks (oh, yeah, he also writes for me on Raw Charge).

My point is, how about throwing a little recognition my way in your upcoming 2011 Best Of The Bay awards? I’m not as trendy and attractive as former Interbay Superstar Rachel Moran, nor am I as social as other personalities who’ve won accolades through their net presence…

But I have been around a while, and I’ve been the guy keeping things running for some of your favorites in the past. A hat tip to the mysterious online producer isn’t much to ask, is it?

Maybe it’s worth blaming the Social Networks for? Â or the face I am writing full time for a top-tier sports blog network?

Whatever the case, I’ve neglected Stonegauge for a very long time.Honestly, it’s easier for me to re-tweet something on Twitter or to post on my profile at Facebook than post on Stonegauge, which goes to the general masses.

Maybe it’s my audience here? Â Or maybe it’s just the fact the world has moved on. Â Whatever the case, my posts on this site have been few adn far etween. Â Maybe that will change, or maybe it won’t? Â We’ll see.

But I can also say that wasn’t where I intended to go with writing when I started out as a kid.Â My intention wasn’t to be a face-in-the-crowd (though no matter what you write or publish, you are another face in the crowd of literature) in the newspaper.Â Not another source for magazines and what not.Â Not a weblogger.Â I planned on doing things creatively and having my own book.Â Or books — plural.Â Take your pick.

But that never happened.Â See, when i was a teen I got away from story writing so much and was writing poetry most of the time…Â a habit that’s followed me into adulthood.Â Lyrical verse more-so than deep observations and perspectives…Â Well, yeah they are perspectives but they are my perspectives. Â Sometimes just pop, sometimes inspired by events or people or feelingsÂ in my life.

Over the years, I’ve had some of them available to the masses through the web…Â Certainly you can find a couple of them on this site and probably elsewhere on the web…Â But they’ve never really been published in the sense of print.Â Never published in the sense of being out there for any traditional form of mass consumption.Â I haven’t bothered to take the time with sending out poems to magazines who have niches all of their own (and aren’t available unless you pay for a subscription or pay for a copy — while you’re not getting paid for your contribution).

I ought to put together a manuscript and do something with it.Â But I’m hesistant.

Catherine Durkin Robinson, local blogger and Creative Loafing contributor, has written two book manuscripts.Â Her first one is being published, chapter-by-chapter, on a blogspot site.Â The other, a more recent work based on her life as a teacher in Hillsborough County, is being sent around to literary agents in hopes someone will pick up the work and mass-market it.Â Sadly, that has not been the case and the rejections have been comical at best.

Their loss.Â I’ve read the book and it’s not only a good read, it’s provocative and controversial enough to be read widely by those fearing school-district scandals.

I also have another friend, in the Pacific Northwest this time, who went out and self-published her first novel.Â The book, Steel Goddesses, is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase.Â It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that and self-publish any work…Â But it sort of cuts out the middle-man of having to appease literary agents who tell you what a proper market for your writing is-or-isn’t and tells you to change your work to fit that niche.Â At least that’s what I’ve seen with rejections served up to Catherine.

So the idea I am kicking around is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry I’ve written over the past decade and self-publishing it.Â Â I realize that poetry is not exactly a hot seller and not going to lead me to riches…Â It’d cost me more to publish than the commissions I’d get in the long run from doing it…Â But it does what I have long sought to do — take the writings jammed in Mead notebooks that I’ve carried around since High School and take some of those verses and show them to the masses.Â Will people connect?Â I have doubts.Â Will strangers read what I’veÂ written?Â Even more doubts…Â But it’s mine, and it’d be out there.Â My claim.Â My piece of literature.

Sorry I have not posted here on Der Stonegauge for something like… well, a long while. How long? So long, in fact, that it’s an opinion of a falsehood and not the truth. That’s how long.
Part of it’s just lacking motivation to write something not hockey related. Part of it is the inability to collect thoughts. I get an idea for a blog post and by the time I am back at the computer I find myself having to report on something else.

I’ll try to be more involved here, but if life calls — I have to put everyone (both of you) following Stonegauge on hold again. Sorry.

I’m trying to get the WP-Cumulus tag cloud to show up. It already shows up in the sidebar but… Well… I’m trying to get it in the content body of the front page (and elsewhere) so… Wish me luck?
[WP-CUMULUS]

Update: As you can see, this nifty, fantastic, rootin’ tootin’ tag cloud is working.